Re^2: match last element instead of first??

... and m/fish(.*?)$/ makes perl go to the end of the string, match as little as possible (from back to front), and then fish.

Update: After rereading the original message that was not asked ;-). But it may still be worth noting that anchoring is a good idea if there is no compelling reason against it.

Second update: ignore this node ;)

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Re^3: match last element instead of first?? by Corion (Patriarch) on Oct 17, 2007 at 17:30 UTC
No: `perl -le "$_=shift; m/fish(.?)$/ and print $1" "one fish two fish thr +ee fish"` [download] gives `two fish three fish` [download] `.?` will match as little as necessary, but it will not match as little as possible. The `fish` will still match at the leftmost position. Then, the `.*?` will match as little as necessary to make the match succeed, which still is the rest of the string.	[reply] [d/l] [select]